Metro West Approved - A Victory of Statewide Import
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors has approved a proposal by Pulte Homes to build 2,250 townhouses, condominiums and apartments near the Vienna Metro station, overriding vocal opposition by neighbors who feared an increase in localized traffic congestion. (See the WaPo account here.)
The MetroWest project will replace 65 single-family homes on 56 acres with 2,250 townhouses, condominiums and apartments, plus stores and offices. Pulte has argued that pedestrian access to the Metro station will enable many residents to ride the rails to work, alleviating some of the inevitable congestion. The developer also has committed to creating a smaller traffic footprint by organizing van pools, making Flexcar rentals available and providing a wide range of goods, services and amenities within the 13-building complex.
MetroWest presents an paradox. High density development will put more cars on the road locally. Traffic congestion undoubtedly will increase locally. But the mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly, shared ridership-friendly project will generate less automobile traffic regionally than almost any alternative. Given the fact that Northern Virginia's economy is booming and newcomers are moving to the sub-region by the tens of thousands every year, people have to live somewhere. If the housing stock isn't expanded in projects like MetroWest, it will be expanded in the non-controversial but incredibly inefficient alternative -- cul de sac subdivisions on the metropolitan periphery.
Traditional subdivision development generates far more automobile traffic than will MetroWest -- potentially twice as much for the same number of people. Had the Fairfax supervisors rejected MetroWest, they would have displaced the development and associated traffic somewhere else, presumably to a location not served by Metro and developed in a scattered, disconnected pattern that makes buses and ride sharing less feasible.
Most important of all, Pulte's MetroWest project will raise the bar for mixed use development across Fairfax County and, indeed, all of Virginia. Pulte's unprecedented plan to reduce the development's traffic "footprint" will demonstrate what can be accomplished when developers and local governments collaborate to reduce traffic congestion.
Kudos to the Fairfax County supervisors. They did the right thing.
posted by James A. Bacon @ 5:09 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I don't have any stake in this, so I don't see it as all that impportant. It probably will make my lot with actual land around it with natural flora and fauna still more rare and valuable. I regard this as a real opportunity to settle some issues with a rare real life experiment.
This approval is hardly a surprise, though. The supervisors have demonstrated their disdain for real public input by holding hearings in rooms too small (this is hearsay) and refusing to appear at meetings called by the opposition. The staff report on the project opened with a litany of smart growth homilies, stated as goals for the project, but nowhere was there any evidence as to how those goals would be achieved.
As you say, Virginia has some excellent modelling capabilities. Let's hope that someone will take the initiative and do a total, comprehensive traffic and business analysis for an area as large as five or ten miles from this place right away, and then repeat the process five and ten years from now.
We should do the same for Albemarle Place and some other locations with strong growth restrictions, such as The Plains, VA, for comparison.
Then we will be able to tell if this is really one of the most important zoning decisions of the year. If the results prove out as promised, I'll concede I've been wrong in my skepticism.
I'm not too worried about having to eat the humble pie, though, because I doubt the evidence will ever surface. If it does, it will take a long time, and do nothing to resolve our current problems.
It is probably incorrect to put the neighbors fears about increased congestion in the past tense just yet.
Ray Hyde: I think you see this one correctly. It's time for Virginia to move beyond hollow platitudes and look at these issues with factual analysis based as as much data as can be obtained reasonably. Some of these concepts might work -- but we need fair ground rules first. The fact that the Fairfax County BoS approved a so-called TOD project before defining what TOD is borders on malfeasance in office.
That is all I have been saying. There is nothing wrong with making efficient use of our land and transportation resources. My beef here has been that PEC and company is wholly unrealistic about their proposed policies and the results they might achieve. Furthermore, they seem to completely ignore the costs involved, especially if those costs fall on individuals.
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